R. Lee Wrights

Ten years of fear is enough

"Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of
fear, kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor with the cry of
grave national emergency.
Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign
power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it."
(Gen. Douglas MacArthur)

by R. Lee Wrights

BURNET, Texas (Sept. 7) - As we approach the tenth
anniversary of one of the most devastating events in American history, we will
be inundated with a mind-numbing around-the-clock media coverage of the event.
We will be flooded with a rehash of the events of that tragic day, hear
countless stories about heroes, be subjected, once again, to endless analysis from
"experts" about why this attack occurred, and listen to political
leaders pontificate on the meaning of the tragedy in memorial services,
newspapers and on radio and television. We will see the tragic events over and
over again just as they were captured that day when people all over the world
sat in front of their televisions and watched the horror as the twin towers
came tumbling down.

None of these stories
will be as revealing as the one recounted to me by a friend, both of whose
parents served in the military. She once told me that she "grew up"
in the VFW, spending hours at VFW posts listening to old soldiers tell their
war stories. Every event and every story, she recalled, ended with the toast
"may we be the last." For many years, she never understood what that
meant. Eventually she asked, and learned that the toast expressed the hope they
they'd be the last veterans of the last war.

Sadly, that hope is still
a long way from fulfillment. On the tenth anniversary of 9/11 we will probably
hear the claim that "everything changed" that day. In reality,
nothing has changed. The president, Congress and our political leadership used
the familiar combination of lies, deceit, and manipulation of fear to stir up
an unreasonable, unthinking, unquestioning orgy of patriotism to justify
entangling our nation in yet another fruitless, endless war. And now, a decade
after 9/11, we are no closer to "winning" the so-called War on Terror
then we were when the first U.S.
soldiers set foot in Afghanistan,
an impoverished little country that has been a bloody battlefield for decades,
on Oct. 7, 2001. Not content to invade and occupy one nation, the warmongers
who control our government deemed it necessary to invade and occupy a second
nation, Iraq, and expand the
war to include attacking targets in any other nation, including supposed allies
like Pakistan.

As I wrote a few months
after the attack, two tragedies occurred on Sept. 11, 2001. The first and most
horrific was the murder of thousands of innocents, including Americans and
foreigners. But the second tragedy of 9/11 was more subtle, much more
devastating, and continues even today. By killing only a few thousand people,
and aided by the ignorance and opportunism of our political leaders who reacted
to the attack like vindictive children, the terrorists achieved exactly what
the set out to do. They were able to send untold millions into such a panic
that they have turned their backs on the very things this great country was
founded and built upon.

The far worse terror we
now face as a nation is the State's manipulation of the effects of fear
deliberately induced and exaggerated to cause citizens to willingly sacrifice
their liberty before the great god Security. The two most noble victims buried
beneath the tons of stone and steel that once was the World Trade Center are
those precious American siblings -- Liberty and Freedom. Rather than responding
to this attack the way Americans usually have responded to adversity - by
picking themselves up, marshaling their courage and resources, and building a
better, stronger nation, our political and military leaders choose to exploit
9/11 in order to increase and strengthen their own power, turning America into
a nation of quivering victims.

If America's leaders had really wanted to send a
message that our nation could not be cowered by terrorism, we would have
rebuilt the World
Trade Center
within a very few years, even higher and bigger than before. Instead, the
reconstruction turned into a spectacle of squabbling special interests, with
competing "victim" groups claiming a right to dictate what was done
on the hallowed ground. To our shame, those who profess to be our political,
civic and military leaders choose the low road, putting self-interest,
self-aggrandizement and their own power first, rather than the founding
principles of our nation.

Our supposed rulers want
us to be afraid, to be victims, because people who are afraid are easier to
manage, eager to hear someone tell them they will be taken care of, and more
willing to comply with government edicts without question. Every person who
willingly acquiesces to even the seemingly small and harmless limits on the
freedom in the vain quest for safety hands the terrorists another victory. They
are ideal citizens in the eyes of despots and tyrants.

America
must shake off the pallor of victimization and stop being afraid. The most
dangerous threat to our freedom, unfortunately, is not some delusional,
fanatical terrorist. It is not a religion, nor is it any nation. The most
dangerous threat to our freedom is allowing the fear of the world to blind us
to the terror we face at home, from those who use lies, deceit, and fear, who
seize unconstitutional power and claim immoral authority under the pretense of
protecting us from harm. On the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorists
attack, it is time to tell our pretended leaders that ten years of fear is
enough. It is time we stand up united and say – enough is enough! We are
a free people and we will not be ruled by fear.

-30-

R. Lee Wrights, 53, a libertarian writer and political
activist, is seeking the presidential nomination because he believes the
Libertarian message in 2012 must be a loud, clear and unequivocal call to stop
all war. To that end he has pledged that 10 percent of all donations to his
campaign will be spent for ballot access so that the stop all war message can
be heard in all 50 states. Wrights is a lifetime member of the Libertarian Party and co-founder and editor of the free speech online
magazine Liberty For All. Born in Winston-Salem, N.C., he now lives and works in Texas.

I normally wouldn't piss on a "libertarian" if (s)he was on fire. However, this little ditty hit the mark. Sadly, being tucked in at night by Big Mother has become a national passtime. "Creative governance" - real or imagined threats, internal and/or external) has been the modus operandi of U.S. adminsitrations for all of my life (more than 50 years). It is what the proto-dictators do best, and always have. One would hope that it wouldn't wash in the 21st Century.

We are, sadly, living in a culture of weak-kneed, mindless entitlement junkies. To defend against anything, individually, just isn't on the agenda for so many U.S. citizens. Most don't even know they've been raped until the baby is delivered